This invention pertains to the monitoring of a variety of instruments, wherein the number of instruments, or their location, renders their monitoring by a single individual or single television camera an impossibility.
As an example of such a multiple instrument monitoring problem, envision the testing of aircrafts. Such testing is very expensive and time-consuming. Many test programs require detailed records of aircraft parameters, for instance airspeed and outside air temperature, which are only available from the cockpit instruments. In such instances it becomes necessary for the copilot to record manually these parameters during the test. When the testing requires both the pilot's and copilot's attention, one frequently employed alternative is to provide duplicate instruments at some other location in the aircraft as a secondary or photopanel installation. This is an expensive alternative. Another alternative involves the placement behind the pilot of a movie camera which views the instruments. This method is not totally satifactory because the camera does not always provide clear, precisely deflned pictures of the cockpit instrumentation due to lighting and vibration effects. Poor lighting, and differing instrument panel and movie camera vibration frequency levels are difficult obstacles to overcome.
As another example of the multiple instrument monitoring problem consider intensive care units in hospitals and nursing homes. Monitoring of patient's vital signs is generally accomplished by television cameras conveying instrument readings to monitors at distant nursing stations. At times, however, all of the instruments used cannot be placed in view of a single TV camera. Personnel must then make periodic visits to the room in spite of the use of a video camera. This, the aircraft testing, and similar problems are overcome by the practice of this invention.